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I tried to install back in time and now I keep getting the message 'items cannot be installed or removed until package catalog is repaired. I have tried

sudo apt-get install -f

then get

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  backintime-gnome
The following packages will be upgraded:
  backintime-gnome
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/39.4 kB of archives.
After this operation, 24.6 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

when I click Y, I get the following message

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of backintime-gnome:
 backintime-gnome depends on backintime-common (= 1.0.7); however:
  Version of backintime-common on system is 1.0.8-1.
dpkg: error processing backintime-gnome (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error     from a previous failure.
                      Errors were encountered while processing:
 backintime-gnome
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
stephanie@stephanie-ThinkPad-T61:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of backintime-gnome:
 backintime-gnome depends on backintime-common (= 1.0.7); however:
  Version of backintime-common on system is 1.0.8-1.    
dpkg: error processing backintime-gnome (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 backintime-gnome
2
  • It doesn't let you install any software or just BackInTime? May 18, 2012 at 3:15
  • How about "dpkg --configure -a"? May 18, 2012 at 4:18

2 Answers 2

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Sometimes a corrupt installation package can corrupt your package management system leaving your Linux unable to install or on remove any packages (Software). Here is the message error I got from apt-get after trying to install ndas-admin for Ubuntu.

$sudo apt-get install mplayer (or any package) Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done E: The package ndas-admin needs to be reinstalled, but I can’t find an archive for it. (this is the error)

I tried : $ sudo apt-get install -f , to try to fix the problem but got the same error. The only option I had was to edit the dpkg status file manually.

$ sudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status    (if you prefer you can use vi instead of gedit)
Locate the corrupt package, and remove the whole block of information about it and save the file. Mine looked like this:

Package: ndas-admin
Status: deinstall reinstreq half-configured
Priority: extra
Section: alien
Installed-Size: 100
Maintainer: root <root@ubuntu510>
Architecture: i386
Version: 1.0.2-24
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.4-1)
Description: Administration toosl for XIMETA,Inc NDAS device driver for Linux operating system
 ndas-admin – This program allows the user to register/enable/disable/unregister the XIMETA NDAS hard disk.
 .
 (Converted from a rpm package by alien version 8.53.)

Fixed. Hope this helps someone else.

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I had the same problem with Google Chrome. While it proceed for installation in the software center, it stops installation and issue error.

Use the following command to remove the incomplete installation

 sudo apt-get autoremove 

Then try to download the file again and install it via the software center. If not succeeded, try command prompt approach by using

sudo apt-get -f install

If not for the second time, again remove the unhealthy package form your system so you can install other applications.

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